Love is a many splendored thing...

Splendor -
n. 1. Great light or luster; brilliance.
2a. Magnificent appearance or display; grandeur.
b. Something grand or magnificent.
3. Great fame; glory

So according to the American Heritage College Dictionary, Fourth Edition LOVE is a thing that has much fame and glory. 1 and 2 could fit, but not as well as 3.

As a human being who has done little more in his life than talk, agitate, fall short of the glory of God, and seek to meet his own ends through selfish endeavors, I'm not sure that I am fit to give love it's due.

I know I have tossed it's famous name towards everything from CD's to puppies to other human beings and meant it very few times in truth.

I guess that's what I come here to write about. How do you love in truth and in deed? And I'm not talking about God. He knows that I don't know how to do that and is ever patient with my feeble and lacking attempts to try.

I speak of other humans. Of my friends, of my family, of co-workers, of strangers, and of my lady.

My friends I think I come closest to. I don't have to spend every waking minute with them (which makes loving anybody easier), and my time with them is so joyous it evokes nothing less than affection. Still I know that I keep them at arms length and feel myself growing farther and farther apart from them. I don't read the hippest books, I don't read theology books, I don't like to have serious conversations because I don't like to disagree or be disagreed with or be wrong. I grow less authentic and more unteachable with them at every turn. Yet I look for there affection and admiration more than I do from any other people I know.

My family is a tough pickle. Since embarking on this Christian journey, I feel a need to love them on a deeper level. And as I matured spiritually I have come to realize I must love them as they are and not as I want them to be. Yet they cause me nothing, but turmoil. They are so hard for me to deal with, there is so much division within, that I can hardly bear to give them time to dwell in my mind's eye. Yet, I don't take them before the Lord and pray for unity, or pray for Him to dwell in more of their hearts and to soften more of their hearts to the truth, I just sulk in self-pity and woe. If you refuse to pray for someone then you don't really love them. I think that is a truth of the Christian life that many of us, including me, don't like to admit to.

I have a really bad attitude about other adults in my profession. Unless I have to work with them on any everyday basis, then I want nothing to do with them. I would rather drink scalding hot toilet water than develop professional relationships. Bah humbug.

I speak loftily of loving others and can do it better than I love people I see everyday, but giving old unwanted clothes, saying "HI", losing a game of chess, or having one converation is just the beginning of loving the strangers I walk by on the sidewalk or on the street or the inner city ministries I volunteer at. Just the beginning, but I feel like I might slide into complacency and let it be just enough...

Loving a woman with all your heart, mind, and soul. I feel entirely inadequate. Will I be an adulterer like my stepfather? Will I be an abusive alcoholic like my stepfather and grandfather both? Will I be a tyrannical king who demands dinner and slippers when I get home? Will I learn to love with more than three words? Will I love with my actions, without wandering eyes, without wandering thoughts, will I love wholeheartedly? Will I seek her best over my own or turn inwardly down a selfish route? Will I love like a mature man or like a juvenile ass constantly teasing her and not edifying her? Will our love have youthful energy like the Deaver's? Will our love have joy and beauty like the Behrens'? Will our love have spiritual strength like the Kapple's? Will our love overcome unconquerable adversity like the White's? Will our love be ruggedly authentic like the Winkler's?

I don't know. I'm just learning that love has many facets and no poet or songwriter or author has done it justice in description. And trying to live under its tutelage is agonizingly difficult, but I desire to be its pupil, so learn I must.

Teach on Love, teach on. Educate me in the truth and goodness of your ways maestro.